The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation is considering a project to tap methane gas from its solid waste landfill site at Pirana.
The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) is considering an ambitious project to tap methane gas from its solid waste landfill site at Pirana, on the outskirts of the city. This project will help the civic body generate additional revenue to supplement that from the reduction of greenhouse gases in the environment.
For this, the AMC is planning the scientific closure of the landfill site. However, the project is at the consideration level and will take around two to three years for completion.
“The project is in the primary stage and the process of inviting bids from interested parties will take three to four months,” said IK Patel, deputy municipal commissioner, health and solid waste management department. “First, we need to find out the quantity of methane stored in the landfill site at Pirana,” he said.
The civic body has taken the help of LD College of Engineering to gauge the quantity of methane gas at the landfill site. Patel confirmed the news of taking help from LD college, but said that he had no idea about when the survey will begin. The survey to determine the quantity of methane will be completed within three to four months, said a source in the AMC.
The project will be funded under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) and Rs8.4 crore has been allotted for this project. If the closure is to be carried out in the traditional way, the money allotted under JNNURM may be sufficient. However, if the landfill site has to be closed in a scientific manner and methane has to be tapped, it will require more money for the project, said a source.
The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai has undertaken a project for the scientific closure of the Gorai dumping ground and gas capture. “An AMC team will visit the Gorai dumping ground to study the project,” said Patel.
The AMC is now disposing of the waste at the existing dumping site, which has a total area of around 84 acres. Around 12 million tonnes of waste has accumulated in heaps of garbage of 15 to 20 m height, on around 45 hectares of land. This has been there for many years and as a result, a good stock of methane gas is said to be trapped in the heaps. If sources are to be believed, around 950 cubic metre of methane can be extracted on a daily basis from the dumping site.
Methane gas can be directly fed to nearly industries after been filtered as raw fuel for boilers, which eliminates the use of the traditional coal, lignite etc. It can be used to generate electricity in gas engines and this electricity can be distributed to nearly industries. Around 28 nearby industries have evinced interest in using methane gas thus recovered, said a source.
Methane extraction from the waste dumping site will help the civic body reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. Besides, the use of traditional fuel will be eliminated, thereby reducing the emission of greenhouse gases like CO, CO2 and SO2, and non-conventional energy will be produced and utilised.
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